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STORY: UN / SEXUAL VIOLENCE WRAP
TRT: 3.55
SOURCE: UNTV / UNIFEM / MONUC / UNMIL
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 24 JUNE 2009, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE – RECENT, NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior, United Nations Headquarters
24 JUNE 2009, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, press conference
3. Med shot, audience
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Jan Egeland, Director, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and former UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs:
“We met women that had been gang-raped by militia groups for weeks, that were physically and mentally destroyed. And they were not one or two, or five, they were thousands.”
FILE – UNIFEM
5. PSA - Violence Against Women
24 JUNE 2009, NEW YORK CITY
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Jan Egeland, Director, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and former UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs:
“It is now of utmost importance to go after leaders. It is accountability we need at all levels, including accountability in the UN to make this a major issue of enforcement and of implementation. But President Kabila has to be accountable for what his army is doing and what his army is not doing. And his army is performing horrendously in this area, and those who deal with the President of the Congo or have a stake in Sudan or whatever are responsible.”
FILE - MONUC - 28 FEBRUARY 2009, GOMA, NORTH KIVU PROVINCE, DR CONGO
7. Various shots, Secretary-General meeting women victims of rape and doctors inside the "HEAL AFRICA HOSPITAL"
24 JUNE 2009, NEW YORK CITY
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Major General Patrick Cammaert, former General Officer of the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC):
“The atrocities of Kiwanja lately are a shame. I have no other word for it: shameful. And this is destroying the reputation of the UN, destroying the reputation of MONUC, and should be stopped. So we have to think about how can we now inform member states better and force member states, and force the Security Council, to really push this thing forward to make sure that member states act.”
FILE – MONUC - 21 FEBRUARY 2007, WALUNGU, SOUTH KIVU PROVINCE, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
9. Med shot, exterior Walungu Hospital
10. Close up, "no guns permitted" sign in hospital window
11. Wide shot, patients on beds in Walungu Hospital
FILE – MONUC - 21 FEBRUARY 2007, BUKAVU, SOUTH KIVU PROVINCE, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
12. Various shots, female patients at Panzi Hospital
24 JUNE 2009, NEW YORK CITY
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Leymah Gbowee, Executive Director, Women Peace and Security Network Africa:
“By the time you don’t raise this issue, you’ve given rise to an increased sexual violence and rape in post-conflict, and that’s the situation we are faced with in Liberia. It’s almost like impunity, amnesty, rape is something that you can continue to do [get] away with because no one will ever raise the issue. And for those women and other groups going through peace talks right now, it’s about time that we step away from that lie, that if you raise this issue, it’s going to jeopardize the smoothness of the process.”
FILE – UNMIL – 18 NOVEMBER 2008, MONROVIA, LIBERIA
14. Med shot, UNMIL police officer shouting commands at self-defense training for girls
15. Med shot, girls practicing punching
16. Med shot, officer correcting student's posture
24 JUNE 2009, NEW YORK CITY
17. SOUNDBITE (English) Betty Bigombe, Chief negotiator between the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan government:
“I think involvement of women at the peace table is absolutely crucial. But you also want women who go to the peace table not to be note-takers. They have to be women who know what they are there for, who know their right, who can make a sensible contribution.”
FILE - UNTV - JULY 2006, OTASH CAMP, DARFUR, SUDAN
18. Wide shot, women carrying firewood in Otash Camp
19. Med shot, guards escorting women carrying firewood
Women’s rights activists, senior military figures and top United Nations officials met in New York this week to discuss what the world body’s former humanitarian chief Jan Egeland described as “one of the biggest conspiracies of silence in history” – the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war.
At a joint press conference with other experts at UN headquarters today (24 June), Egeland said that sexual abuse of women was the “most haunting outrage” he had witnessed throughout his career, recounting how he had met “thousands” of women who had been “physically and mentally destroyed” after being gang-raped by militia groups.
Sexual violence has become a method of fighting in modern war, with a devastating impact on women and their communities.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has committed his resolve to put an "end to this scourge" through his campaign 'Unite to End all Forms of Violence against Women and Girls'.
This month also marks the one-year anniversary of Security Council resolution 1820, which for the first time acknowledged the use of sexual violence in conflict as a deliberate tactic of war.
Egeland noted that perpetrators of such crimes belonged in jail, and predicted that we would see this happening more. However he said it was “now of utmost importance to go after leaders”, who had to be accountable for the actions of the armed forces under their control. Egeland singled out President Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo as an example of a leader who should be urged to control an army that “is performing horrendously in this area”.
Earlier this year, Ban Ki-moon visited a hospital for victims of rape in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) - a region that experts agree suffers from the world's worst epidemic of sexual violence. The perpetrators include rebel soldiers, the government army and civilians.
Asked about UN peacekeepers’ responsibility to intervene if they become witness to such acts, former MONUC commander Patrick Cammaert told reporters that the failure to prevent recent atrocities in the DRC’s North Kivu region were “shameful” and were destroying the reputation of the UN and MONUC. He said UN member states needed to be “forced” to do more.
This week’s talks focused particularly on the lack of female involvement in peace negotiations, and on the implementation of Security Council resolution 1820.
UNIFEM research shows that since the end of the Cold War, and out of approximately 300 peace agreements examined in 45 conflicts, only ten peace processes have even mentioned sexual violence.
Leymah Gbowee of the organization Women, Peace and Security Africa, who participated in the talks to end the civil war in Liberia, said that omitting reference to rape in peace agreements was a big mistake, because the result was that impunity for rape would continue into peace time.
She urged women and other groups going through peace talks right now to “step away from that lie, that if you raise this issue, it’s going to jeopardize the smoothness” of the negotiation process.
According to Gbowee, three out of four Liberian women were raped during the war. Rape is still a commonly reported crime in Liberia, and young girls are often the victims.
The UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL)’s policewomen are trying to help Liberians overcome a propensity to blame victims for the crimes, and empower young girls by teaching them self-defense techniques.
One of the ways to make sure sexual violence is addressed right from the start of the mediation process, and that crimes of sexual violence are given the same priority as other international crimes, is to bring more women to the negotiating table, said Betty Bigombe after participating in an informal Security Council briefing by experts and veteran peace negotiators.
But she warned that even though the involvement of women was “crucial”, they should “not be note-takers”, but women “who know what they are there for, who know their right, who can make a sensible contribution.”
Bigombe has played a leading role in negotiations between the Ugandan government and the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels for almost twenty years.
The UN’s agency for women UNIFEM, women comprise on average less than ten per cent of peace negotiators and less than two per cent of mediators.
